Chapter 7

hope within insanity

"well well, how nice" the man said as he walked down the church to the dead warden. The sinister smile on the man's face was of delight. Mark and Zack looked confused "so tell me, are you enjoying the show?"

sir are you enjoying this?" mark asked the strange man. The look of anger was apparent on his face which would be apparent through the light from the church's candles "listen sir, I have no idea who you are..but this is literally hell on earth" he said in a loud tone. The mysterious man was intrigued "well?" he asked demanding an answer

"the people are now in a stage of history, the first publicly known outbreak...that will shock the world, amaze others...and show that humans are indeed as indestructible as they thought they once were" the man said in such a tone that said that he was excited. "it will show if people have a drive to survive against the elements that are unfamiliar to them" the man preached to the two as he looked at two of them. He than looked at Zack who was looking slightly nervous "however, it appears that mankind got lucky.." he remarked as he walked up to Zack, the man's sinister brown eyes felt as if he was staring into Zack's soul "i see great power in you" he stopped as he than proceeded to walk out.

"wait, where are you going?" Zack asked the man, obviously thinking the man was scary but he didnt want to see others hurt

"to the elementary school, I heard that they are planning an escape route...something about buses.." he said as he walked off. Zack and mark looked at each other with confusion. The two were trying to figure out what was happening, mark himself was trying to understand what exactly what was happening

"Zack, I have no idea what is happening...the problem is now that we have these things after us...and what in the hell are you?!" mark told Zack in a state of confusion "you punched that creature clear across the way and destroyed him" mark added as he pointed the warden's mangled corpse

"i...i am not well, but that does not mean...that I am like them" Zack said looking down. He than realized that lily was still out there "lily!" Zack said as he ran out of the church, he realized that lily was no where to be seen. Zack just felt on instincts to run towards a specific way

"Zack! Wait!" mark called out as he saw Zack run away into the distance "swell, just swell..." he said as he shook his head, he looked at the dead warden and then went after Zack.

Zack ran down the path, the path lead to a playground, the items that were usually the staples of any playground was more or less worn with use and time. The sounds of the swings were actually very unnerving moving in the wind. Teeter totters were crashing on the ground. The sound of wind chimes were heard from a couple houses in the neighborhood.

Zack looked around and realized that she was no where to be found. It was than he heard crying underneath the slide. "lily?" Zack said out loud as than the tear stained eyes appeared as she looked at the corner of the slide. She ran out with happiness as she hugged him tightly..crying once again

"i'm sorry I left you….i just don't want to go back" she told Zack who hugged her back. After a few minutes of Zack trying to calm her down. She looked around nervously, obviously in fear Lily actually was scared by everything that was going on "i always wanted to go to a park...our nurse Louise always talked about getting clearance for us to actually go to a park...but the man in the lab coat told us that we were not to be treated like children...only test subjects" confiding that too Zack was actually interesting "i remember when Louise gave me a barbie doll...the man took it away..." she looked sad after the revelation

"lily, when you say experiments...what did the people do to you?" Zack asked her as he got onto one knee so he could be at her level "please understand...this is very strange for all of us, this town was hit hard..." Zack's words made her look away "you know what's going on don't you?"

"i was born in a lab, my parents gave me away and all I was worth to them was money..." she said as she was still crying. It was obvious that this girl was put under a lot of trauma as Zack noticed a lot of marks were needles used to be on her flesh that was revealed.

"lily, I promise to get you out of here..but only if you will promise to stay with me ok?" Zack told her, lily obviously was trusting Zack because of the fact that Zack took out her warden. "we need to get somewhere safe...I'll leave you there.."

"no..i will only stay with you...and we need to find my friends..they escaped with me.." lily told Zack as she was trying to plead with Zack "van is really sick, art and Shannon went to go find food and medicine..we didn't have money though"

"say no more, we will find them..do you know where they would be at?" Zack asked her, trying to get some clues to where they might as well go to

"they said that there was a school, if we got lost than go to the playground and one of us will get you...we got separated after the warden found me" lily looked down with sadness as then Zack smiled at her "I guess we are going to the school than" he than realized that the girl obviously was starving "it looks like that you haven't eaten.." lily looked down nervously "don't worry OK? However I do wanna get somewhere safe for a bit...it maybe better if we don't travel by foot there..C'mon Zack told her as he held her hand